Just a couple days ago, a snowstorm hit my area and it took me 5 1/2 hours to get home. All the next day, I listened to angry people complain about their miserable commute and how horrible it was. To me, it was a surreal and memorable experience. The highways were not moving so I went off the highway and took to the backroads. It was dark and the roads were slick but I had good tires and all-wheel drive so I wasn't worried. I put on some Christmas music and took it slow the whole way. If somebody got up behind me flashing their high beams, I found a spot to pull over to let them by. (Some of them probably ended up in a ditch.)
As I got closer to my house, there were wrecks and the police had roads closed, forcing me to detour several times. Eventually I got on some really remote back roads but roads that I knew pretty well so the last few miles to my house were rather magical, with the snow flying and the car slowly and surely making it up and down the unplowed hills as I listened to Christmas music.
It was definitely a night to remember, probably like the day you ended up unexpectedly at the Mall of America!
Getting back to air travel and the tendency for people to complain about it all the time, it really is a marvel when you think about it. Once of the things I do once in a while is park near an airport and just watch the planes takeoff and land. It is still amazing to me that such huge machines can so gracefully take to the sky and land on a narrow strip of runway with such precision in nearly all kinds of weather.